Artificial intelligence is poised to revolutionize the real estate industry and make the homebuying process much more transparent, AI-driven startup Localize believes.
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Headquartered in New York City, Localize was founded in Israel in 2012 and also has offices in Tel Aviv. The startup, which operates in Israel under the name Madlan, launched in the United States in 2019 and began working with real estate agents and brokerages earlier this year.
It has developed an AI- and big data-based platform that enables both buyers and brokers to streamline house-hunting, a traditionally low-tech process.
“Our goal is to reinvent homebuying,” Localize President and Chief Operating Officer Omer Granot told The Media Line. “We introduced AI and big data to create transparency and trust with homebuyers that I think is just lacking in today’s market.”
The platform collects information from billions of data points and transforms them into selectable attributes for prospective homebuyers, including proximity to popular stores, future construction projects, building violations, complaints and even natural light.Buyers can also tailor their searches via the startup’s hybrid human-AI adviser called Hunter, which creates a highly curated, ranked listing of properties that are then refined as users respond to suggestions.
According to Granot, more than 40% of those who purchase homes wind up regretting their decision due to a lack of information.
“There really is no place to find all these things out, except Localize,” he asserted, calling the real estate industry’s current process “extremely outdated.”
Other real estate firms have also begun to incorporate high-tech solutions such as machine learning and AI algorithms into their products and services.
One of these is the Seattle-based Zillow, an online real estate giant founded by former Microsoft executives that has more than 135 million homes listed on its platform. Zillow uses machine-learning models to simplify the real estate transaction process and provide customized searches and home valuations.